Why older characters are interesting
Yes, that is a photo of my backside further down this post. I’ll explain why in a minute.
Fell heavily while leaving my morning shower two days ago. Hurting bad. All upper body. Well, from twisted left hip upwards. Ribcage, shoulders and neck all hammered. Right elbow’s immobile. The ME/fibro fallout from damage like this takes a long time to pass. Four months on from the fall I took in the summer and some things still hurt.
And you know what? It’s all invisible. People still say, “you’re looking good.”
Here’s the photo.
a rear view of me
No big deal. I enjoy photography and sometimes model for friends. Anyhow, it isn’t the bum I’m talking about. It’s the legs. You see those muscles? Old distance runner’s muscles. They still look good, don’t they? You can’t tell they hurt all the time as if they’ve been hammered with a baseball bat. Unless I tell you, you don’t know.
And that, finally, is the point I’ve been rambling towards.
Older people usually have more hidden stuff going on inside than younger people, simply because we’ve been around longer. That’s true in real life and it’s true in fiction.
That’s why my favourite book and movie characters are old buggers. Tough and moody, like Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. Vulnerable and brave, like Rose Sayer. Melancholy and many-layered, like George Smiley. Torn between a true love from the past and a vital loyalty in the present, like Ilsa Lund. Courageous and creaky, like Indiana Jones.
Beautiful young things are lovely, and they can be very interesting, but they really can’t have much of a past. And it’s the bruised onion layers of experience being slowly revealed that makes a character come alive for me.
What do you think?
Quick update (and a mildly embarrassing fanboy outburst)
I’m still borked. The logic of ME/fibro experience would suggest that after a very quiet weekend…
(lots of international rugby on the telly in addition to my beloved RealityTVfest of I’m A Sleb and Strictly Come Dancing and the X Factor – yeah shoot me if you want but it’s sparkly telly to brighten up the dark winter evenings – followed by the opening 90 minutes of the promising new Survivor series)
…I should be feeling relatively okay today. Except that I don’t, and there’s neither rhyme nor reason so I won’t bore you with theories or explorations. It’ll pass when it passes.
Meanwhile, I started work on Quarter Square’s second draft last week. After a two-month pause since finishing the first draft I still love the story. That’s a yay.
What else…
Oh, yes: Stephen Fry and I are following one another on Twitter. He’s the famous person I would most like to have as a friend. Lovely man. So that’s a Yay! 
NaNo’s a no-no
Even though I’m still relapsing like a big relapsing thing, my voice was strong enough on Saturday to dictate for the first time in 9 days. When I started, Saturday lunchtime, I was on 10.5k – which was 15.5k behind schedule.
I gave it my best shot. Managed 1.3k words in about 4 hours, then slumped into a heap and stayed there for the rest of the day.
I’m out of NaNo. No way I can catch up. When I’m in ‘good’ health I can do 1k per day comfortably. I did that through the summer to first-draft Quarter Square, and it worked very well. But more words than that for more than two or three days is pushing too hard, even when I’m ‘well’ – when I’m in relapse it simply isn’t going to happen at all.
I’ll continue writing this story in realistic time. It’s a good story and an important part of Wild Times.
But it seems I must accept that NaNo is in my past.
Back in the nano-saddle
I’m still sucking relapse-plankton and coming up for air briefly at random intervals, but my voice has recovered its strength this morning so I plan to dictate nanowords for the first time in 9 days.
Yes, you could say I’m slightly behind on my schedule. By the end of Day 15 (today) I should be at 26k, which means I need to do 15.5k to catch up over the next 12 hours, and I think we all know that ain’t gonna happen. But I’ll do what I can and we’ll see where we are when the dust settles.
The voice strength thing is significant because Dragon Naturally Speaking doesn’t recognise me if I slur my words, which happens when pain has exhausted me for a few days. If it doesn’t recognise you, and you insist on continuing with the dictation anyway, the software starts to retrain itself. Obviously, that isn’t a good thing. It’s a physical obstacle to dictating in the same way damaged hands are an obstacle to typing, and it’s one I never could have foreseen.
But, hey, I’m back in the saddle.
Pause for thought
Trying to NaNo while dealing with a family crisis last week was like juggling soot, then a stealth attack relapse hit me on Friday. Hey, shit happens.
So, no nanowords since last Thursday, which is a week tomorrow. I’m at 10.5k: a good foundation for when I can get back to work on it. That’ll be sometime this week if at all possible. I plan to dictate some this afternoon if I can (and it’s looking good right now – I’m still sitting upright after posting this) but I won’t jump the gun. There be dragons in that direction, and they ain’t friendly ones like my Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software. They be nasty snarly dragons that’ll chew me up and sink my nano if I try to beat the storm instead of waiting it out.
However, I will complete this first draft with a minimum of 50k words by 30th November. Relapses are as much a part of my life as writing. The trick is balancing the buggers and finishing up with a well-written piece of work despite everything.
Or even because of everything. Ah, now, there’s a thought. I’ll inject feelings from this real life experience into my fiction. Yes.
Old people having sex
I’m not talking about real life, here. We know old people don’t stop loving each other in real life: I’m 51 and my love life is better now than ever before. I’m talking about fiction.
Can you handle ‘love in old age’ between your pages, whether or not they get between the sheets? Does it depend on genre? Or is the entire topic simply a turn-off for you? Honestly, can you only deal with love and sex when both bodies are still smooth and shiny?
I’m very interested in the potential for great love, growing and developing over many years, between characters who age together in a story.
This delightful vid of Low vs Diamond’s Heart Attack is exactly the kind of thing I mean.
My WIP Quarter Square involves an immortal and her repeatedly reincarnated lover. On the surface, her looks stay the same while she watches him age during life after life, while, in terms of real age, she is truly ancient but he never gets beyond 70 or 80-odd.
How old can a fictional character be, before you get a little sick in your mouth at the merest hint of body fluids being exchanged? 30? 40? 50? 55? Can I get a 60 from anyone?
Do you think your own age might affect your response to this subject? I’m sure I wouldn’t have been freaked out at the thought of two fictional oldsters getting it on when I was a young reader, but I know some youngsters (many youngsters?) are. If you were, once, do you still feel the same way now you’re a bit older?
Talk to me.
NaNoers, what’s your favourite bit so far?
Jacob, my friend (and role model for one of my characters)
Here’s mine:
I’m not a small man, but when the wolf reared up he dwarfed me. I guess he stood six and a half feet tall and weighed three hundred pounds. And he wasn’t shy about leaning his whole weight on me. In fact, I suspected there was a fair degree of dominance in this, and I had no intention of challenging his status. Right there and then, he was the boss of me. It was all I could do to control my bowels, never mind anything else.
What’s yours? Raw as you like. Post ‘em here.
This morning, the world feels a safer place
Our planet having survived eight years with the single most dangerous man on the planet living in the White House and surrounded by seriously sinister fuckers, the world feels to me like a safer place today.
Thank you, USA.
I love my American friends. I’m proud of you.
Symbolism
At the end of my navy career I spent two years paralysed in various hospitals and nursing homes. I didn’t know what would happen to me and it wasn’t the best time of my life.
In one nursing home, there was a tree right outside my upper floor window. I had no idea what it was and really didn’t take much notice of it. Until, one lovely summer morning, it flowered. A nurse told me its name: magnolia.
I fell in love with that tree. To me, magnolias will always represent beauty and hope.
